How to Use Personality Type to Find a Career You Love

Sometimes it takes time to find a career you love.

If yours doesn’t feel right, now might be the best time to make a change for the better. Over 40% of the global workforce is on the brink of resigning, according to Microsoft, so the balance of opportunity is definitely in your favor. 

At the same time, finding a career you love can be a bit like searching for a needle in a haystack — hard work if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Thankfully, you can use personality testing as a compass to help uncover your deepest career needs and set you on the right path.

Let’s see how you can use personality type to find a career you love.

1. Career success begins with knowing yourself 

When you know yourself — your strengths, weaknesses and what makes you tick — you’ll better understand what your deal-breakers are, what motivates you, and why your previous career left you feeling unfulfilled. For instance, a quiet, thoughtful person is unlikely to find much satisfaction in a fast-paced sales environment, and ‘faking it ‘til you make it’ will ultimately leave you feeling drained and unhappy.

As you learn more about your own unique personality type, you’ll recognize patterns and preferences that can help you examine your behavior at a detailed level. This self-examination will give you more insight, shedding light on what you want and don’t want from a job, and what motivates you to do your best.  

2. Discover passions you’ve been neglecting

There’s a saying that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. The problem is, most of us lose touch with the things that make us really happy, because we’re influenced by outside sources and get disconnected from ourselves. Discovering your personality type to find a career you love may help you remember the interests and traits you’ve been neglecting, such as the desire to care for someone or a cause you’re really passionate about.

The key to navigating career transitions is to be honest with yourself. This is more easily done when you know how you view life, how you process information, and how you make decisions. Once you’ve done some soul-searching, you may find you have different priorities than you thought you did. 

3. Some jobs will fit your personality while others won’t

Once you understand your personality preferences, you can start to research the careers that match you best. One of the most well-known personality theories, the 16-type system developed by Myers and Briggs, helps you figure this out in four areas:

• Which social situations are most comfortable for you (Introverted vs. Extraverted)
• How you take in information (Sensing vs. Intuition)
• How you make decisions (Thinking vs. Feeling)
• The way you perceive and live in the world (Judging vs. Perceiving)

Introverts versus Extraverts

How you use your energy affects your workplace performance a lot, and you might find you’ve been in a draining career that’s left you anxious and unable to recharge. Extraverted types will enjoy an office environment that emphasizes teamwork and social networking, and ideally offers a packed social calendar. Extraverts thrive in careers that deal with people.  

Introverted types prize independence over team-based work and might even dread busy office jobs. Case in point, Truity’s Back To Work survey found that 36% of Introverted types said they felt “very negative” or “mostly negative” about heading back to the office after working remotely in 2020. If you’re an Introvert, you’ll feel happiest in a career that lets you escape somewhere quiet every now and then and respects your reserved independence above social obligations. 

Intuition versus Sensing

How you take in information has a lot to do with your work performance. For example, a Sensing type will prefer an environment that lets them learn and problem solve through facts, experiences, data and research. Sensing types tend to prefer careers that let them solve real, concrete problems in a hands-on way, such as careers in engineering, massage therapy, construction, nursing, and law enforcement.

Intuitive types, by contrast, prefer to use innovative solutions to solve problems. These types want more freedom to be analytical and creative, and may do well when tasked with understanding complex ideas, and innovating in artistic fields, communications, or psychology.

Thinking versus Feeling

Your decision-making process also has a lot to do with what your dream job could be. Thinking types prefer to use a logical process to reach decisions, and will much prefer a job that leverages logic above emotion. 

A Feeling type is much more about their own emotions and those of other people. They may find their best fit in careers that place the human condition, people, and relationships above all else.

Judging versus Perceiving

The last personality area is Judging versus Perceiving. This preference explains how you organize your life.

Judging types love structure, organization, and planning. Because of this, they tend to do well in traditional structured environments with clear procedures and deadlines. This is the complete opposite of Perceivers, who prefer to be spontaneous, open-minded, and flexible. Too many rules tie them down, and a Perceiver’s ideal job will have a varying schedule that allows them to enjoy their free-spirit lifestyle.

Get ready to find a career you love

Finding a career you love is possible, but figuring out takes deep consideration. To make a decision, start by understanding your personality type to help narrow down your options and reveal what you really want when it comes to your work environment, responsibilities, and overall role. If you’re eager to get started, head over to Truity’s TypeFinder Personality Test and answer the questions as honestly as you can. They may just lead to your dream role.